Ice
by katie-elise
Summary: Death Note drabbles, various pairings, based on the notion of retold fairy tales.


_A/N: Inspired by a book of retold fairytales that I'd forgotten I had. It was too...ah, sexually charged...for me when I was younger, and even now, with all this fanfiction under my belt, it made me squirm. Still, I was very impressed with the imagery and descriptions. _

_There may be more oneshots to come in this same vein, with different pairings and such, if there's an interest, or if I feel like it :P_

_So let me know how the imagery and such is, because that's what I'm focusing on here. Or trying for. _

_Never wrote NearxMello before. So someone crack a bottle of champagne against the bow and let's get this ship to sea!_

Ice

Mello is like biting into an apple; Near can feel the cool, crisp flesh underneath the taut skin, the sweet juice dripping in rivulets down his chin and neck, drying sticky on his chest.

He has never touched the enigma of spun gold and cocoa powder, woven into a fabric of deadly beauty and trimmed with leather. But Near doesn't need an expansive intellect to feel what yearning pale fingers have never dared to graze; Mello oozes sensation, he's the five senses personified.

Feeling has never been Near's strong suit, and Mello is wrapped in them like foil, like a membrane, they seep out and diffuse. It's osmosis, moving from an area of high concentration to one of low concentration until each is balanced, and that's why he keeps coming back.

Near knows that Mello is using him, he's a reservoir, but what Mello doesn't know is that Near is using him, too.

White, to the point of translucency, Near used to wonder if, by some celestial misstep, he had ice water where his life force should be.

Mello makes him bleed, soaks into him like dye climbing cheesecloth, and if Near is the reservoir, Mello is what fills it.

He's the transfusion keeping the snow white boy just this side of existence.

When he leaves, goes, never returns, Near can't summon the force of will to be sad, hurt, worried, depressed, agonized. Just empty. Mello was like the nurse at the Blood Donation center; the one who took just a bit too much. The one who sent you home to faint and shiver and puke and lay on the white porcelain of the bathroom floor.

Near doesn't feel anything for years. His soul is dormant, lying in wait for the rain to drip down the windowpanes, fertilizing the soil, whispering _wake up_ in hissing patterns against the glass.

Sometimes, when he looks at the picture, a single drop of blood electrifies, like a bindi in the center of his forehead; religion, the twining of souls, release of wisdom, all of it Mello Mello Mello.

It's the one thing he has, the last fragile shred of fishing line he can reel slowly in, not able to be terrified of breaking it in the struggle, but logic demanding subtlety nonetheless.

Near can't hope; it was the first thing Mello took with him, but there's an echo of something indefinable in his chest, ringing and shivering like the last dying peels of a church bell when he hears Mello's voice.

When he finally walks through the door.

He expected everything, but he never knew nothing would change.

Mello's presence drains him more. Near's still not alive, if anything, he's more dead than ever.

Poison runs in Mello's veins, lurking just below the surface. Razor blades are sunk into his flesh, ready to cut anyone who tries to take a bite; his perfect skin is blemished and bruised, the membrane damaged. Nothing is getting through, because somewhere between Wammy's and the Mafia Mello's learned to facilitate the diffusion, and he hasn't let anything leave since.

He secretly fears that, if he did, his venom would infect, disease, mutilate, kill.

Near's almost dead already, so Mello figures he'll take his chances. If anyone can handle it, it's the crumpled figure before him.

Mello's used everything to get to the top, and for a second he's afraid there's no part of him pure enough for what he needs to do, but then he remembers the one thing he never stooped to, that was too sacred, that he wouldn't admit he was holding in reserve for a time, place, and person lost in his past.

He pushes the poison down to his toenails, as far from the skin of his lips as he can force it, and kisses the passed out boy lying on the cement in front of him.

Meteors crashing to Earth, a drowning man expelling water from his lungs, and Mello can't, he can't, it's rushing up and out and into the blackhole that is Near, consuming everything he is, taking sound, matter, light, his whole being, and it's going to kill him, he's going to die…

Rose petals are pressed to his mouth, clean, soap, fresh pine, purity. Unsoiled. Beautiful.

Mello's eyes open, and for the first time in years he isn't going to explode. The emotions that plague him constantly, filling him to the brim and more, demanding, screeching…gone.

A soft smile plays over his mouth, and he should have know, did know, all along…

They're an hourglass; fill, tip, fill, each side in turn, keeping one another sane, each providing what the other cannot.

Time hasn't changed that; it's refined it, the sand running through, smoothing the funnel to a five second timer, a four second timer and less…

One, skin, two, flesh, three, core, and the taste of the juice on his lips is sweeter than Near never imagined.


End file.
